Dissemination is crucial if learning and teaching research is to inform decision-making and affect change. If the ultimate purpose of dissemination is indeed for the intended audience to take up or adopt an innovation, information or resources, as argued by Fincher (2000) , it is understandable that funding bodies, such as national or institutional organisations, would be interested in ensuring that there is a return on investment and that innovative practices move beyond project or investigation teams. In late 2009, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded a special project to determine whether the promoted dissemination strategies had led to effective dissemination and consolidation of outcomes of completed ALTC Grants Scheme projects funded between 2006 and 2009. The project, called D-Cubed, developed a new dissemination framework, grounded in both the literature and the empirical research. The framework is designed to increase opportunities for achieving productive change in learning and teaching. The new framework particularly attends to exploring the climate of readiness for change, which previous project leaders identified as a challenge. The project also developed a series of resources based on the framework to support future teaching and learning innovators in developing a coherent, consistent dissemination strategy. Aimed at those who are looking at developing a dissemination strategy for teaching and learning innovation projects and those who are coordinating institutional changes in teaching and learning practice, this workshop presents project findings and explores the resources in a practical, hands-on session. The workshop provides a brief overview of the project background and findings before supporting participants through the resources on their own teaching and learning innovations or institutional change processes. It explores the various elements of the new framework and invites project participants to use the resources within the contexts of their own teaching and learning innovations to identify:·
Participants will have the opportunity to work in small groups to develop dissemination strategies designed to maximise continued embedding and upscaling innovation and change. The workshop leader is Deanne Gannaway, an academic developer and Head of the Evaluation Services Unit in TEDI at the University of Queensland, Australia. Deanne was leader of the ALTC funded project, A Review of the Dissemination Strategies used by Projects Funded by the ALTC Grants Scheme, which came to be known as the D-Cubed project. Helen King, Head of Academic Staff Development, University of Bath, will facilitate the event.
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